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Swift is Open Source

swift.org

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Re: Swift is Open Source

#321

Post by sangnoir »

threeseed wrote: post #310
platz wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a go fan, but seems like if anyone has scale problems, google would, and go would give them these issues too which is surprising since that was kind of the goal to solve from their perspective.

There's different definitions of scale. He is talking about from an engineering perspective and at Google we have seen nothing other than a few periphery sites being written in Go. I fully agree that Go is a poor language if you are building a large, monolithic application.

> I fully agree that Go is a poor language if you are building a large, monolithic application.

I find that statement hilarious considering that it was explicitly one of the design considerations[1] for Go. So they either failed massively, or there's a difference in perspective on what a good language for programming in the large is.

From Rob Pike's talk[1]:

> Go was designed to address the problems faced in software development at Google, which led to a language that is not a breakthrough research language but is nonetheless an excellent tool for engineering large software projects.

1. https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article

Re: Swift is Open Source

#322

Post by coldtea »

peterle wrote: post #320

Initial commit was made 4,5 ago... Is it normal it takes so long for a language to become Open Source? commit 18844bc65229786b96b89a9fc7739c0fc897905e Author: Chris Lattner AuthorDate: Sat Jul 17 23:50:59 2010 +0000 Commit: Chris Lattner CommitDate: Sat Jul 17 23:50:59 2010 +0000 initial swift test

There's no "normal" or not "normal". There are projects that became open source after a decade or more of existance.

Open Office for example had a long life as the proprietary "Star Office". Blender too IIRC.

Re: Swift is Open Source

#323

Post by coldtea »

platz wrote: post #304
justinhj wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was our opinion that it's harder to write code that will be shared with a bigger team. Some of the factors were the simpler type system, lack of generics meant lots of copy and pasting of common patterns. The package system seemed less comprehensive and flexible in comparison to Java's. These are just subjective issues of course, but I think it's reaching a bit to say that Go and Swift are the best two languages y…

Not a go fan, but seems like if anyone has scale problems, google would, and go would give them these issues too which is surprising since that was kind of the goal to solve from their perspective.

>but seems like if anyone has scale problems, google would

Google doesn't use Go at such large scale though. Some projects here and there, and most of them small for all I've read. The most publicly celebrated ones being a MySQL front-end for YouTube and a caching-layer (?) for Google Downloads. Not exactly earth shattering applications.

Re: Swift is Open Source

#324

Post by cowsandmilk »

iamsohungry wrote: post #231
chaz72 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguing about "the point" misses the point. There's plenty of room for both free software and open source software.

There's room for plenty of things that I don't care about. I don't care about open source software that is still controlled by Apple.

yeah, very self consistent, pretend you care about the GPL, then decide it is the vendor you really care about. Who cares that Apple controls GPL software installed on almost every GNU/Linux machine?

Re: Swift is Open Source

#325

Post by 102030485868 »

steveklabnik wrote: post #182
pjmlp wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not odd for anyone with background in compiler development. By using C++ they could ramp up the compiler much faster and rely all improvements done to LLVM. Eventually if the language succeeds in the market at large, they can decide to bootstrap it. Although I am a fan of bootstrapping, I also see a good value to expend development resources elsewhere until a language reaches wider adoption.

Not to mention, bootstrapping in a language that's not stable yet can be.... quite a pain.

Hahaha, I'm amazed that the Rust developers were able to do that.

Saying it was "quite a pain" is the understatement of the year.

Re: Swift is Open Source

#326

Post by thescriptkiddie »

mkesper wrote: post #292
avar wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple seems to think so, which is why all their GNU tools are frozen at their GPLv2 versions.

Apache2 is compatible with GNU GPLv3, though.

Compatible doesn't mean equivalent. GPLv2, AGPL, and LGPL are all compatible with GPLv3, but they don't have the same terms.

Re: Swift is Open Source

#327

Post by coldtea »

sangnoir wrote: post #321
threeseed wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's different definitions of scale. He is talking about from an engineering perspective and at Google we have seen nothing other than a few periphery sites being written in Go. I fully agree that Go is a poor language if you are building a large, monolithic application.

> I fully agree that Go is a poor language if you are building a large, monolithic application. I find that statement hilarious considering that it was explicitly one of the design considerations[1] for Go. So they either failed massively, or there's a difference in perspective on what a good language for programming in the large is. From Rob Pike's talk[1]: > Go was designed to address the problems faced in software…

>I find that statement hilarious considering that it was explicitly one of the design considerations[1] for Go.

That doesn't mean much, if anything. One of the design considerations for Java was "write once, run everywhere" and that didn't turn out that well either.

Most languages make failed or semi-failed promises.

And their idea of addressing software development at scale, might not be 2015's idea of doing the same.

Aside from Google, most other teams I've read using Go are more often than not writing small or medium-sized services, no big applications or highly complicated stuff.

Re: Swift is Open Source

#328

Post by zimbatm »

peterle wrote: post #320

Initial commit was made 4,5 ago... Is it normal it takes so long for a language to become Open Source? commit 18844bc65229786b96b89a9fc7739c0fc897905e Author: Chris Lattner AuthorDate: Sat Jul 17 23:50:59 2010 +0000 Commit: Chris Lattner CommitDate: Sat Jul 17 23:50:59 2010 +0000 initial swift test

A number that I've seen thrown around: it takes 5 years to create a language. Probably less nowadays since we have all the tooling. It might make sense to wait until the language has settled-down before open-sourcing.

Re: Swift is Open Source

#329

Post by dragonwriter »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #326
mkesper wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apache2 is compatible with GNU GPLv3, though.

Compatible doesn't mean equivalent. GPLv2, AGPL, and LGPL are all compatible with GPLv3, but they don't have the same terms.

GPLv2+ (GPLv2 with the optional "or any later version" language) is compatible with GPLv3, but GPLv2 is not otherwise compatible with GPLv3 (e.g., Linux is under GPLv2, and not GPLv3 compatible.)

Re: Swift is Open Source

#330

Post by Arjuna »

pa5tabear wrote: post #318
Arjuna wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, congratulations, that's really cool! Speaking of errors, I remember receiving the "Expression was too complex to be solved in reasonable time" error when I was first implementing Catmull-Rom splines for calculating flight paths in a game that I developed. I translated that to, "The math is making the room spin up in here." Definitely the "coolest" error I've hit working with Swift.

I recognized the name Catmull from Steve Jobs biographies... lo and behold you're talking about the Pixar President Edwin Catmull.

Indeed; that's him! Edwin Catmull [1], along with Raphael Rom [2], created the Catmull-Rom spline.

It was perfect for the Galaga-like level in my game. I only need to define a few control points to create a robust flight path for the enemy drones. The cool thing about the Catmull-Rom algorithm is that the spline passes through the control points.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Catmull

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Rom

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